I wanted to get a picture of our members, and the environment in which they live, specifically when it comes to martial arts.

*What part of the country do you live in?
*What's the distribution of MA schools in your area, with a rough percentage of the arts represented?
*Are there any unique/uncommon martial arts offered in your area besides the normal TKD/Karate/etc, including MMA/NHB fight teams?
*If you had to guess (unless you know for some reason) what percentage of people in the general community in your area are active participants in the martial arts?

I'll start:

*KC Metro Area, Missouri
*50% Karare, 40% TKD, 5%MMA/NHB 5% Other, including Krav Maga and Kung Fu
*Capoeira (Axe Capoeira), Gracie Barra Jiujitsu, and American Jujitsu.
*I'd say around 20%, which I think is a high number. I'm told that this area has one of the highest concentrations of martial artists in the country, but Kung Fu is really underrepresented from what I've seen.

Well...right now, I'm living in Japan temporarily...but I can tell you about my home area.

*I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
*There's about 60 % TKD/Karate/Kung Fu, 30 % MMA/Muay Thai/Ju Jutsu, and about 10 % Weapons (kenjutsu, etc.) and other.
*There is a capoeria school downtown that I know of (I've really been meaning to get my ass down there to check it out). Also, Escrima and Kali arts are starting to grow steadily here too.
*as a whole, I don't think too many people here are into martial arts....and the vast majority of those who are are into TMA's like TKD, Karate, Judo, Kung Fu, etc.

"Everybody knows...if the police have to chase you down, they're brining an ass kicking with them". - Chris Rock

"Onward we stagger, and if the tanks come, may God help the tanks." - Col. William O. Darby

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"When we go to the ground, you are in my world. The ground is the ocean, I am the shark, and most people don't even know how to swim." RCJ Machado

Originally Posted by Sifu Rudy Abel

"Just what makes a pure grappler think he can survive with an experienced striker. Especially if that striker isn't following any particular rule set and is well aware of what the grapplers strategies are".

being as there are 4 colleges/universitys in a 15 min radius we have quite a few schools,
aikido being the most popular by far, a couple of tkd/karate places, some judo, kendo,3-4 bjj,a kenpo, a kung fu, boxing, haven't seen too many muay thai or FMA places but i haven't really looked for them

long island, NY. mostly karate/TKD in terms of storefronts. some aikido. i've seen only 1 judo place. i have seen a growing number of BJJ places, some of which charge ridiculous amounts ($300/month) and one of which requires a 12 month, credit card deducting, "blue belt" contract, which i think is ridiculous even though my friend who goes there says that the guy is pretty good and has some students in MMA. kung fu is less common, mostly WC/WT with some "shaolin kung fu" of dubious authenticity. the monks are more in the city. some kempo, but i'm not sure how that differs from karate. tai chi/yoga/cardio-kickboxing/new age BS places are common. i know guys that do JJJ, kali/escrima, silat, and dirty fighting sort of self-defense, but i'm not sure where. there are a couple of kendo places that i know of on long island, but you have to know where to find them. my housemate's TKD place did boxing as well, but i don't know of any boxing gyms per se on long island.

my xing yi teacher had a place in queens but it was converted to a shaolin temple/"meditation center" which i think is affliated with the one in flushing. he lives out on long island though so i take lessons at his house. i took kumdo and kendo on long island, and i visited but did not join aikido, judo, and BJJ. i did fencing briefly, but a scheduling conflict came up.

*Pinellas County, Florida; hard to say which city. When people ask, I say, "St. Petersburg" so I don't have to tell them where Largo and Seminole are.
*55% TKD, 25% Karate, 15% Chinese martial arts(gongfu and taiji mostly), 5% Other (some Arnis, Silat, a Wing Chun Do/Lee's Non-classical Wing Chun school, one BJJ school in Dunedin).
*There's the BJJ school up north, and also a fellow on MLK who teaches Mixed Martial Arts and puts on a kickboxing event yearly.
*10%. I see kids in the grocery store with their uniforms on daily, some from the Chinese Martial Arts center, some from the TKD schools (there are two across the street from each other on the southern end of Starkey where it intersects with Park Blvd, it's that bad in some places). I think the number would be higher if it counted people who did martial arts at one point in their life.

Edited by - Mercurius on July 10 2003 23:02:47

"The morning glory blooms for an hour. It differs not at heart from the giant pine, which lives for a thousand years."

Buncha TKD/Karate places out here, and a surprising amount of MMA/grappling places. I'm quite impressed actually. One of the MMA places was mcodjo... went apeshit when I overpaid and asked for it back. But at least the instruction was good.

&amp;lt;Me&amp;gt; John, what do you know about Zen Buddhism? &amp;lt;John&amp;gt; *smacks me*
&amp;lt;John&amp;gt; I'd have to smack you sometime...

Katana, on 540 kicks: "Hang from a ceiling fan with both hands. Flail your feet out and ask people to walk into you as you hit their face."

*What's the distribution of MA schools in your area, with a rough percentage of the arts represented?

Mainly TKD, and alot of Kenpo/Kempo schools. There's a growing number of styles out here.

*Are there any unique/uncommon martial arts offered in your area besides the normal TKD/Karate/etc, including MMA/NHB fight teams?

There are a few BJJ/NHB/Kickboxing (they all teach a combination of BJJ, kickboxing, boxing, vale tudo in one comination or another). There's Jeet Kune Do/Jun Fan, some traditional schools like Tang SOo DO, Shotokan, Shaolin Kung Fu (yes there is a shaolin do, i've heard some real negative things about how they train), Wing Chun study groups, Ninjitsu is now being taught at a school here, there are some off the wall japanese schools out here that fatality dragon has told me about. There's escrima, Kajukenbo, Universal Kenpo and some strange American Kenpo mixed with something or other schools as well, one offers Penjak Silat (sp?), and 2 Muay Thai schools to top it off.

*If you had to guess (unless you know for some reason) what percentage of people in the general community in your area are active participants in the martial arts?

Vegas is exploding in population, so that's a hard question to answer, but with the number of schools in strip malls out here, I'd say it's a very healthy number.

"But some apes they gotta go, so we kill the ones we don't know" - 'Ape shall never kill Ape' by The Vandals